Hundreds rally at Capitol for stricter gun control

Dirk Perrefort

Published 11:46 pm, Thursday, February 14, 2013

Jillian Soto, sister of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim Victoria Soto, left, speaks as her cousin Heather Cronk, right, holding photograph of Soto, listens, during a rally at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. Thousands of people turned out to call on lawmakers to toughen gun laws in light of the December elementary school shooting in Newtown that left 26 students and educators dead.
Photo: Jessica Hill, AP Photo/Jessica Hill

Jillian Soto, sister of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting...

Heather Cronk, holds a photograph of her cousin of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim teacher Victoria Soto, as she wipes her eye during a rally at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. Thousands of people turned out to call on lawmakers to toughen gun laws in light of the December elementary school shooting in Newtown that left 26 students and educators dead.
Photo: Jessica Hill, AP Photo/Jessica Hill

HARTFORD -- A crowd of more than 5,500 came by bus and cars to converge at the Capitol Thursday in the March for Change -- a rally for stricter gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons, organized in response to the Sandy Hook massacre that killed 20 first-graders and six educators.

Lasting more than an hour and spreading out on the grounds of the Capitol, the rally was timed for two months to the day since the Dec. 14 shootings.

Many of those attending said it was time in the face of such horror for the silent majority to be heard.

"I hope we can make a change," said Shelley Northrop, a Sandy Hook resident who took one of seven buses that left Newtown in the snow and cold for the Capitol.

"The NRA has such a strong voice. There are people who feel like I do, whose voices are not being heard because we're not organized, but that's changing."

During the bus trip, Northrop spoke about the pain felt by the community. Many people in town are connected to the massacre in some way, she said, either through a friend, a relative, a teacher or a neighbor.

"I used to say that if you don't vote, you can't complain," she said. "Now I feel that if I don't do something, I can't complain."

After stepping off the bus and onto the Capitol steps, Northrop and others unrolled a banner signed by the students from Columbine High School that had been sent to Newtown in the days following the shooting.

"If you can't get on a plane without a background check, you shouldn't be buying a gun without a background check," Malloy said.

Residents from every corner of the state came to have their voices heard and to listen to speakers who told their own tales of personal tragedy in the face of gun violence.

Sally Cox, the nurse at Sandy Hook Elementary School, came Thursday to listen, and to lend her support. When the shooting started at the school on Dec. 14, Cox said privately that she could hear the gun fire, and the screams, from down the hall.

"That sound, the sound of that gun and the speed, that's something you never forget. There are too many young people dying. Something has to be done," Cox said. "I believe if the assault weapon ban was still in place, this may have never happened. These guns were purchased legally."

Among the speakers was Jillian Soto, whose sister, Victoria Soto, has been hailed as a hero for trying to save the first-grade students in her care.

"For me Vicki was a hero long before Sandy Hook," Soto said, "she didn't have to die to prove that to me."

Soto said she wanted her sister to be remembered for the wonderful teacher she was, and the great sense of humor she had, such as the time she wore flamingo pajamas to school for PJ day.

"That's how I want her to be remembered," Soto said. "Not as a hero staring down the barrel of an assault rifle held by an extremely sick man."

Veronique Pozner, whose 6-year-old son Noah was the youngest victim of the massacre, said citizens may have the right to bear arms, but not "weapons of mass destruction."

Pozner held up and showed the crowd a picture of a turkey Noah had colored at school for Thanksgiving. On each of the feathers, she said, he wrote what he was thankful for, "electricity, books, family and friends."

On the center feather, Pozner said Noah wrote, "the life I live."

"That's the life that was taken," she said.

Bridgeport resident Robert Thompson reminded the crowd that young children are killed from gun violence every day in America's cities. Thompson's 14-year-old son, Justin, was killed last year when walking home with his friends from a birthday party after three masked men opened fire at the crowd.

"He was just starting to come into his own, just starting to realize that he had his whole life ahead of him," Thompson said, adding that a friend of Justin's was also "gunned down in the streets."

"I'd like to say that what happened in Newtown was an anomaly, but in urban areas this happens on a daily basis. In cities like Bridgeport children are killed every day. We have to do something."

Colin Goddard, a survivor of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, said during Thursday's rally that the three bullets still lodged in his body are a constant reminder of that day.

"I'm here today not because of what happened to me, but because it keeps happening to other people, and nothing is being done about it," he said. "Hopefully, this time it's different."